Pink Puschel-Mania

 

I think the English word is "pom pom" - but "Puschel" is how we call it - and which is at the moment the most cherished word of the triplets. 

Never in my life I had dreamed that I would wear a cap with a pom pom. (You can remove it by a big snap fastener). 

When I went to Berlin for Christmas I promised to send photos to the Little Ones - so you see the Pink Puschel standing in front of the Literatur Café, in front of the Charlottenburger Schloss, the manor house in Britz - and so on. They loved it. 

And then I had an idea. I went into a fur-shop in Berlin and luckily found "it" - three beautiful very-pink-Puschels for the triplets. They are so delighted! 

 

 

 

Merry Christmas!

 

Tomorrow I travel to Berlin, so I will use the opportunity to send you, my blogger friends, the best wishes for a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. 

Stay healthy and in good mood, be thankful for family and friends. I hope to see you all in 2022! 

Yours truly

Britta   

 

 

So useful - once...

I try to write a post on my cellphone - not easy. Thus it will be (unusually) short. 

I found a photo of the cart I gave to my grandchildren one and a half year ago - so useful for triplets! It has a motor, which is very necessary as we have more than "hills" here. 

Nowadays it is seldom used. The triplets are 2 years and 4 month old and prefer to walk - long distances for little legs. The cart stands in the garage, and I look at it with a sort of nostalgia. 

In Cold Blood

 

The last days we had snow in Bavaria. A lot of snow. 

Beautiful and picturesque. 

Which I enjoyed tremendously. 

BUT (there is always a "but", I found out): here in the rural area you have to do snow shovelling. 

A "funny" card hangs in the entrance hall that every tenant puts one hook further under the name of the next tenant - after a day of a lot (!!!) of hard shovelling. Cold Comfort Farm.

Fair deal - though I, city-spoilt, am neither used to clean the stairwell (we are 4 tenants) - including even the washhouse (and honestly: the stairwell, cleaned weekly is spick and span, so why bother every week - yet, of course I do (every fourth week) - nor shovelling snow. 

It might substitute my fitness-centre (closed thanks to Corona): it must be done at 7 in the morning (I am a lark - that is not the problem - but they do so long and unnecessary parts in front the house (never used paths, Where Angels Fear to Tread) and in the street - shiver, shiver). AND it must be done as often as snow comes down (how can people do that who are at work in the nearby town?) till 7 o'clock in the evening. 

In Berlin we have a janitor, who does the snow-shovelling, and two men who clean the stair well of the huge house built in 1902. 

But I thought a while. Lady Chatterley sprang to my mind. NO - not what you might expect - but one of the tenants is a young forest ranger. So: quite strong. We made a deal: I pay good money for him shovelling the snow on the day when The ICEMAN my turn Cometh. 

So we are both happy  - and I am free to go to Berlin without having to speculate whether snow will fall or not. Perfect. 

"Look for something and you will even find something quite different"

 This is one of my favourite quotations of Karl Foerster, the famous German breeder of herbaceous perennials. A powerfully eloquent man and writer, born 1874 in Berlin, he died 1970 in Potsdam, and was an universally sophisticated man - my idea of a Renaissance man. 

And yes: he wrote "will" and not "might" :-) 

True: I looked for something different on that slightly rainy Sunday in Bavaria. I pushed myself to join a guided tour of the town (I hate guided tours! but do a lot to fight November-Blues) with the title "On the traces of the Hohenzollern in Langenzenn". 

The town Langenzenn (10.652 inhabitants in 2020)  was first mentioned in 945  as "cinna", a royal court by King Otto I.) and belonged since 1248 to the mighty Noble House of Hohenzollern. 

And this is what I found: a jewel of a church. The then wooden church is supposed to be built in 945, burnt down 1388 in the City War from Nuremberg. Only a wooden Madonna survived, now "The Black Madonna", which became a pilgrimage destination. In 1467 the cloister was built for Augustiner monks, a three winged complex, built with sandstone and cloister and gothic cloistered courtyard  wonderfully preserved. 

In 1533 the cloister was shut down by the Lutherian Reformation (though they had the decency to wait till the last monk died - of course no novices were allowed).  

Imagine: this beautiful place is in my very neighbourhood - just one stop with the little red train! I can even walk through the fields to get there - such a joy! 

Inspired by Rachel's Heinz Beanz post I remembered the Afri Cola Werbung 1968 by Charles Wilp

When I read Rachel's highly interesting post about the death of Maurice Drake, creator of the Heinz Beanz slogan, I thought about advertisement - as funny as in Dorothy Sayer's Lord Peter Wimsey - novel "Murder Must Advertise" or as impressive as the above one - created by Charles Wilp. 

I looked that one up on Youtube and beg you to watch it till the end. It is - and there I am utterly sure - one that will bring the political correctness-police into the arena - well: we enjoyed it immensely (and drank Coca Cola - the artistic video did not change our habits). 

I am so glad to have been young in a wonderful time like that (even if you could take the video with a grain of salt - but look at the fashion! The make-up! You were allowed to be sexy! Men too! Me too!  😂) 

Some of the (not highly intellectual) slogans here: "Girl power - woman's lib: Marriage or no marriage - that is no longer the question" "Woman becomes woman - and free" - "People who enjoy their time consciously - being in their right mind" (hahaha) 

Traipsing wildly round the world

"What nonsense!" The Panda gave an enormous yawn. "Traipsing wildly round the world when you could stay here with me." (Mary Poppins by P.L.Travers) 

But it was an oh so lovely week in the Netherlands! From Bavaria to Berlin, from Berlin to the Netherlands - and back to Bavaria now. 

Typical (and not only a cliché) for The Netherlands are:

- The Sea, as seen above

- a constitutional Monarchy (here the famous portrait of Queen Beatrix, mother of the now reigning King Willem-Alexander with his adorable wife Queen Máxima)

                 

  and my favourite Queen, her grandmother Queen Wilhelmina (1880 - 1962) 

                                                   - world trade (and colonies)

       (as you know: they founded New York - formerly Nieuw Amsterdam) 

             - lots and lots of water and the knowledge how to make that land under water habitable 

                                            - Grachten and beautiful houses 

 

                                 - and, as you see here: many, many bicycles 

                                                           - the famous Appeltaart  

                                                    - and beautiful restaurants at the seaside